In Eridu Part 1
Title: In Eridu
Fandom/Genre: Supernatural, h/c, action/adventure, Team Free Will, canon up to around 6x15
Characters/Pairing: Dean/Cas, Sam, Balthazar
Rating: R
Word Count: 66,449
Warnings: Violence, language
Summary: In Chicago, there are omens that point to something big. There's a heatwave that won't end, and the only clues Dean and Sam have to go on are a long history of people going missing from around Lake Michigan and Castiel's weird behaviour. There's something Castiel has forgotten and it's driving him mad.
Six thousand years earlier two other brothers fight to save their world from a slow, pitiless end by calling down the creature responsible. What they get is something they'd never expected, and the brothers come to think that maybe this being, who is powerful and righteous and calls itself Castiel, can save them all.
Notes: This was an epic thing in every way. So much happened whilst I was writing it there were a lot of times when I wasn't sure it would ever be finished. But here it is. Hours spent researching in the British Museum's awesome Hamlyn Library. Hours spent looking up everything from homosexuality in ancient Mesopotamia, to whether mead was a popular drink back then. (It wasn't. But they did enjoy wine made from dates.) Hours spent discussing the plot and characterisation and arguing over why Sam shouldn't be a eunuch, dammit.
Thanks to cienna for that. And for her exhaustive beta-ing, and I have to extend this thanks to her whole family for editing chapter 6 for me, apparently.
Much love to my alphas weirdwednesday, who I apologise to for having inflicted this on, and to littlehollyleaf who helped with some of the earlier plot points and was generally encouraging and endlessly patient. Both of you were indispensable!
Finally, to my wonderful artist __hibiscus. Her art is incredible and I had a wonderful time working with her. You should all proceed directly to admire her wonderful creations here.
And now that I've thanked the universe and the kitchen sink, onto the story.
1. | 2. | 3. | 4. | 5. | 6a. | 6b. | 7a. | 7b.
In full on AO3
.In Eridu.
1.
Dean hadn't been back to Chicago since Death. Even if that had only a year ago, with all the shit that had happened since then it might as well have been ten.
As he drove into the city, windows wound down as far as they'd go, the stifling heat impossible to avoid, Dean could see the effect the heat wave was having on people. They moved slowly along the sidewalks, sweating and miserable and gathering in the shade. Not that it made much difference. On the roads no one had any patience, and Dean guessed they longed for their homes and the prospect of air conditioning, or water, or at least to be away from the painfully slow crawl of traffic through the city where the heat was at its most intense.
On the radio, the announcer warned of water shortages, of heatstroke, of looting, and Dean had no clue how anyone had the energy for it in this. They'd only arrived a couple of hours ago and already Dean wanted out. He hated cities anyway, but this was fucking insane, and all the forecasts predicted worse to come.
Pressure fronts and freak storms in Alaska and pollution build-up had all been used to explain the long, slow slide into record temperatures. It wasn't even summer yet, barely even spring, and people made excuses and told themselves it'd be over soon, it was nothing, but Dean had seen the signs. He had read the articles Sam had found in the local papers and on the internet that reported on the decimation of fish stocks in Lake Michigan, and of the disappearances. It reeked of the supernatural, even if no one else wanted to believe it. So here they were, stuck in traffic, drinking through the last of their bottle of water- warm now but better than nothing- and wishing they'd bought more at the last gas station.
It wasn't like they were in a hurry or anything, only just coming on to the case, and the lethargy this kind of heat induced made it impossible to move very fast anyway. But they had a lot of groundwork to cover and Dean kind of wanted to get to the lake before sundown. The air was so freakily dry, and everything in his car was burning to the touch, and he wanted this job done as quickly as possible.
With something like this though, Dean knew, there was no way it was going to be anything they could just fix up in a night or two.
Something like this took real power. There'd been a shit load of omens, change in weather patterns, and Bobby had heard rumours of unprecedented numbers of ghosts and ghouls and other nasties crawling about Chicago. While that wasn't exactly anything new these days, it was unusual in such a concentrated area. There was no doubt that something big was going on, and the dry heat- like driving into a freaking oven- only made Dean more certain they were dealing with something bad. He hadn't felt this tense, had such a strong sense of wrongness since the apocalypse.
He'd never say it out loud but it was kind of freaking him out.
In the seat beside him, shifting uncomfortably and sweating all over the upholstery, Sam was wearing his most worried look. His laptop sat open on his knees and that had to be really freaking uncomfortable. As though the heat around them wasn't bad enough. Typing slowly in between rubbing at his eyes and pushing his hair back from his face, whatever Sam was finding could not be anything good, if the sighing and muttering were any indication.
It didn't look like they were going very far anytime soon. Seeking distraction from the noise and the boredom and the discomfort Dean leaned back in his seat, stretched out his arms as he gripped the steering wheel, and asked, "You find anything?"
Sam shrugged and shook his head. "I've found a ton of things, but none of them add up to anything that makes sense."
"This had better not be the end of the world again," Dean griped and grimaced, because way to jinx it. That uneasy feeling was stronger than ever, and Dean had always trusted his instincts. It was probably just the heat, Dean told himself, and the claustrophobia he always felt in big cities.
Sam glanced up at Dean before turning back to his computer screen, typing away at a few keys. "Cas would've told us if it was, wouldn't he?"
Only in the life of the Winchesters was the end of the world not a single event. Worse, Dean hated that his first thought was, Not if he's dead he wouldn't.
They hadn't heard anything from Cas in days. Not exactly unheard of, or even unusual these days, but yeah, there was that bad feeling Dean couldn't shake. It wasn't that he was worried. The angel was big enough to take care of himself, except maybe not so much against the host of Heaven. They were just human though, and what they hell could they do to help even if Cas did ask for it?
Wiping the stinging sweat, the tiredness, from his eyes, Dean replied, "Who knows?"
Dean thought about praying. If he were honest with himself he thought about praying to Cas a lot more often than he'd like. But Cas had a war to fight and he'd made it very clear that he did not appreciate being disturbed. Nothing had actually happened that could credit calling down an angel. Not yet anyway. Maybe that was the point. Maybe whatever this was caused a hundred little things that nobody noticed instead of one big thing that had everyone screaming and running away, allowing it to sit back, take its pickings, and nobody knew any better.
They've seen shit like this before, and they'd never yet failed to stop it. This time, Dean knew, wouldn't be any different.
***
Back on Lake Shore Drive, however the fuck many miles and a bajillion hours ago, Dean had noticed the smell.
Then, it had been faint, not much more than a hint of rotting fish and carcasses that Dean had thought wasn’t all that weird for a boiling city. As though the heat wasn't bad enough, as they'd gotten closer to the lake the smell had gradually turned into a stench until Dean was breathing through his mouth so he didn't gag and Sam was grimacing and hiding his face in his shirt, pulled up over his nose.
They were both sweaty, grouchy, and aching from hours sitting in more or less gridlocked traffic, and just to make it the perfect day there was this horrific smell. So the first question Dean asked when they'd finally found someone who would talk to them was, "Why the hell have all the fish just been left there."
Not his most diplomatic opening, but Jesus, standing next to a lake blanketed by dead, decaying fish bloated and floating on the surface and smelling it up close and personal was enough to make anyone pissy.
The guy, a grizzled old charter boat captain, frowned at Dean. "They haven't," he said, not looking at all happy.
It was spring, and the marina should have been heaving with tourists, but there was nothing but rotting fish and boat owners hanging around, cleaning fish guts out of their engines and hoping for crazy fish-smell loving visitors to show up. Or something. With the relentless heat it would have been kind of nice, Dean thought, to get out on the lake, take a swim, maybe there was a breeze out there even. It would have been awesome, if not for the dead fish.
"These are just today’s," the captain went on. "It's the same every morning." He gestured towards the lake. "There ain't gonna be any fucking fish left soon."
"Least it'd smell better," Dean murmured, and didn't miss the sour look the captain gave him. Nor did he miss the way Sam elbowed him.
Ignoring Dean's comment, Sam asked, "When did all this start, sir?" He sounded polite and interested, and Dean wondered if soulless Sam could have done that. Would soulless Sam even have noticed the heat? This was normal Sam, though, and even if this Sam looked tired and kept fidgeting and pulling at the front of his t-shirt Dean was glad to have him back.
From the way the captain was eyeing Sam suspiciously, for a moment Dean thought he wasn't going to answer, like he thought they were somehow making fun of him. They really needed this guy though, and sometimes Dean really wished he'd learn to keep his mouth shut. He was going to blame his bad mood on the heat. It didn’t help that everyone they'd spoken to that day had been pissy and unfriendly as hell. If this heat wave didn't break soon, Dean thought, Chicago was going to turn into an ugly place.
"Please. Anything you can tell us would be really helpful." Somehow, despite his obvious discomfort Sam still managed to sound earnest.
"You gonna be able to change this damned weather?" the guy scoffed.
Sam shrugged noncommittally. It was always difficult to know just how much to tell civilians. How much they were willing to believe before they called bullshit, or what was the best lie. Over a lifetime of practice they’d both gotten good at the deception and the leading questions and the best way to keep witnesses talking, but people were always unpredictable.
At last the captain said, "It started three weeks ago. Right before the weather went screwy." He looked away from them, staring out at the lake. What water could be seen around all the fish lay motionless, the boats tethered to the moorings hardly moving at all. "It isn't natural."
Dean had to admit, the lake's surface looked creepy, like someone had hit the pause button.
"We heard there were some boats found with their passengers and crew missing." Sam said. "Is it true?"
More than the freak heat wave and the dead fish, the reports of missing people were what had brought them to Chicago. No signs of struggle. No damage. Just no one left aboard. Unless it was all some weird prank then there was no way these incidents weren’t somehow supernatural.
And damn but these people were distrustful. The captain's eyes narrowed. "What newspaper you say you're from again?"
"The Daily Herald," Sam replied smoothly, lifting his notebook and pen as though it were proof enough.
The guy hummed, but answered, "It's bad for business, so you keep this to yourselves."
"Of course," Sam said, and Dean would have believed him too from the solemn look on his brother’s face.
"I saw them bring in the second boat.” The old guy shook his head. “Not a soul left aboard. No one's found them yet."
"Does anyone know what might have happened?" Sam asked.
"Not a clue." The captain pulled himself upright from where he was leaning, looking off into the distance and avoiding meeting their eyes and Dean was pretty sure he knew something.
"But you've got an idea, right?" Dean encouraged. "Some theory?"
"Not a theory." The guy waved his hand dismissively. "The boats were all found around South Manitou Island. Been a lot of stories about that place for a long time. A lot of shipwrecks there."
Stories. Right. There were always stories and every time they came across this kind of thing- some place knee-deep in local legends and superstition- it was almost impossible to tell what was bullshit and what was true.
Sam somehow managed to look intrigued, like he’d never heard of anything like this before in his life. "Stories?"
"Weird crap like folk seeing monsters and noises at night. There's an old, abandoned lighthouse there. Some people think it’s haunted." The captain snorted derisively. "I think it's dumb college kids."
Sam nodded grimly in a way that Dean guessed was supposed to show he completely agreed. He let the captain bitch for a while about rich kids renting boats when they knew nothing about them and cared even less, getting themselves killed, polluting the lake, being loud, drunken assholes. From the way Sam shifted from foot to foot, looking thoughtful, Dean could tell though that Sam already planning their next move. Dean agreed that this was definitely a lead. It was better than the fuck-all they'd managed to gather from the news reports and the police channels so far anyway.
"Thank you for your help," Sam eventually managed to break in. It was clear they weren't going to get anything more useful out of this guy. It was getting to dark, too, but the sky was cloudless and clear; great weather for hunting. If it weren’t for the heat making his throat dry and his eyes heavy and tired it would've been perfect. Despite it being close to sunset now the temperature didn’t seem to be cooling down any either.
When they were a fair distance away from the boats and the locals out for a walk, probably trying to find relief from the heat, Dean asked, "What d'you think?"
His shirt was soaked with sweat, he could feel it running down his back and down his legs and it was gross. He would've worried how badly they smelled, if it wasn't for the continuous, over-powering odour of rotting fish that filled the air. As far as Dean could tell there was no escaping this heat anywhere, and the exertion of trekking for a couple miles round the lake was starting to burn.
"Could be ghosts," Sam said. "But they couldn't have done all this." He lifted his hands, turned his palms upwards, and Dean had to agree that he'd never seen a spirit even close to being powerful enough to fuck with a whole city's weather. "Demons are more likely."
"Yeah. Or maybe one of those pain-in-the-ass gods." They certainly had the mojo for it, though Dean couldn't see any motive. Unless they were insane, which was way too likely a reason as any for why supernatural beings did anything.
"Or angels," Sam suggested, and Dean shrugged, conceding the point, because that was possible too. What Dean saw as a random mix of omens might have some meaning to an angel, like Lucifer rising, or something big happening in Heaven. It wasn't exactly encouraging that they hadn't seen Cas in weeks.
Maybe he should've called Cas after all. There was no guarantee though that the bastard would even answer.
"There's still a jar of holy oil in the trunk," Dean said, not that that was likely to be of much use but it made him feel better, knowing that they had something over the angels. Aside from sex and awesome music.
They were coming up to the end of the paved path, no lights beyond it, and a beach made up of massive jagged stones. Definitely not natural, but not exactly ugly in the evening half-light. There were less dead fish here, and the water looked eerily thick and black. Dean was sure it should have been reflecting the sunset or something the way you always saw in vacation photos and magazines. Still, this was Chicago, not some tropical island, and no matter how far Dean and Sam had walked away from the main tourist area there was no escaping the orange glow of cities everywhere and the distant sound of rumbling traffic.
"We could be out for a romantic stroll," Dean teased. It felt good, walking beside his brother, discussing a case like they’d done a thousand times before. It was so familiar, and something Dean had missed when Sam hadn’t really been Sam but some weird-ass mannequin of a man. Working cases with Sam without his soul had been like walking around with some poor imitation of something you loved that just reminded you all the time of what you’d lost.
"Yeah," Sam snorted, "Great place to bring a date, what with the fragrant night air."
Dean laughed, because before, even when they had work to do there had always been time for this kind of thing with Sam. Not so much with soulless Sam, who was all about the winning and didn’t seem to care at all about anything in-between. Fuck, it had been so long since they'd messed with each other like this. There was always some shit in the way, something wrong, and just for once, here beside a dead-fish clogged late in an early spring heat wave that would've made any desert proud, it felt good to have his brother back.
"It suits you," Dean threw back. "Compliments your own fine odour."
"Are you saying I smell bad?" Sam stared at Dean incredulously as they walked. "What are you, five?"
"Hey, I’m just saying it how it is. I’m the one whose gotta get in a car with you."
There was nothing to see out here that Dean could tell. He could barely stand the stench, and would've killed for a cold beer, but even so, Dean was reluctant to let this moment of maybe-sorta contentment go. The sun had nearly set though, and they hadn't brought flashlights with them, and Dean didn't want to chance breaking his ankle on the rocks. That would just be embarrassing.
He was about to call it a night and suggest they head back to the impala when Sam stopped, shading his eyes from the low glare of the evening sun with his hand.
"You see that?" he asked, pointing ahead of them.
Visibility was bad with heat turning the air into hazy mirages and twilight casting long shadows over the beaches and the lake's surface, and for a long while Dean couldn't make out what Sam was looking at.
When he saw, he knew what it was- who it was- instantly. No matter how far away or distorted there was no mistaking that trench coat, nor the awkward, statue-like way of standing Cas always had.
"Is that who I think it is?" Sam asked.
"Oh, yeah," Dean said.
Sam frowned. "This can't be a coincidence, right?"
"Doubt it."
It couldn't be a good sign that Cas was already here. It meant bigger, badder things.
They watched Cas not move, at all, and with the added weirdness of the dead-calm of the like it looked as though the whole world had been put on hold. From what Dean could tell, Cas was staring out over the lake, fixed in place, and it didn't seem like he’d noticed them. It didn't make sense. If Cas was looking for them, surely he would've contacted Bobby, or just appeared right in their faces. Not half a mile away, in the dark, on sharp and pointy rocks brooding like Batman.
Sam must have thought it weird too because he sounded uneasy when he said, "You think we should call him?"
"I guess," Dean agreed.
If Cas was here alone, on his own business, that just made this whole situation freakier.
Neither of them ever asked what Castiel did when he was away doing his angel-business thing, and he never offered any explanations, but that didn't mean Dean never wondered. It didn't seem likely that Cas was just here because he happened to like the view.
He called, "Cas!" and again, "Castiel!" when Cas didn't respond. To Sam, Dean said, "He seem out of it to you?"
It wasn't like Dean was worried or anything, because Cas was a big-shot angel and could take care of himself, but there was definitely something not quite right when he couldn’t even hear them shouting. Cas continued to look out, unmoving, and maybe it was just ego or whatever but Dean was sure that Cas would never just ignore him. Them.
"Cas!" he called again. "Get your ass over here!"
That, at least, got Cas's attention and he turned slowly towards them. It was too far to see clearly, to know if it was just his imagination, but for a second Dean would've sworn Cas didn't recognise them. Even though Dean was sweating like a bitch, skin overheated and uncomfortable, the air stagnant and heavy and cloying, in that second Dean still somehow managed to feel cold. Then the look- if it had ever existed- was gone, and Cas was shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat. Before Dean could think anything else of it, Cas was standing right in front of them, eyes on Dean, serious and familiar.
"Dean," he greeted, then tilting his head to the side, "Sam."
All the times Dean had seen Cas in recent months he’d been short-tempered, like someone was continually on his case. He was always in a hurry, only ever deigning to give them a couple minutes and explaining exactly nothing. Now though, Cas had a sereneness to him, if a confused one, like Cas didn't quite know what he was doing here.
Sam looked at Dean, raising an eyebrow and glancing towards Cas. Dean shrugged, because the hell if he knew what was up with the angel. Things hadn’t been so good between them recently, to the point that Dean sometimes had to wonder if they were even friends anymore. Most of the time he got the impression Cas didn't think whatever was going on with the angels had anything to do with him or Sam. On a generous day Dean would allow that maybe Cas didn't want them involved in something he thought was way beyond them, but even that pissed Dean off. Lucifer had to be the biggest of them all and Dean and Sam had taken him on. It was like Cas didn’t think them capable of handling themselves which was bullshit. If Cas would just talk to them sometimes, let them know the Earth wasn't about to get wiped clean by psychotic angels, that would’ve gone a long way to making Dean less irritated with Cas.
"Something up?" Dean asked.
Cas hadn’t, at least, just gone and disappeared on them. There was that feeling again that something was messed up, but if this was some big Heaven thing Cas certainly wasn't acting all up-in-his face, emergency, gotta act now, like he usually was.
For a long moment Cas didn't reply, almost like he wasn't sure how to answer.
Still in his suit and trench coat, just looking at Cas made Dean feel hot, and not in a good way. The confusion on Cas’s face made him frown, and yeah, maybe he felt a little concerned.
"I was drawn here," Cas said finally, which answered just about nothing.
By now the sun had almost entirely set, and they still didn't have any damn flashlights on them.
Dean crossed his arms. With this unending heat, with Cas being his usual incomprehensible self, despite the weirdness of it all, he couldn't be blamed for being on a short fuse.
"Yeah? You wanna explain what that means?"
Another long pause and Castiel shook his head slowly, unsure.
"These omens." Cas turned his head to look out over the lake again, not at the sky but at the water and the fish. "They are familiar."
"So they are omens," Sam said. "We couldn't be sure if the heat was natural or, well, man-made."
"It is artificial," Castiel confirmed.
"You wouldn't know something useful like, what was causing this?" It wasn't like Dean had any real hope that he did, or that he would tell them even if he did, but it was worth asking anyway.
Predictably, Cas replied, "No." Then, with a look on his face Dean had never seen before, but was maybe somewhere between frustrated and preoccupied, Cas added, "But it is ancient. I'm sure of this."
"You got anything more specific?" Dean pressed.
"I think," Cas said, lowering his eyes to the ground in the way he always did when he told them something he didn't think they wanted to hear, "I think I have seen this before, a very long time ago."
Sam glanced at Dean again, surprised and uneasy. "How long ago, exactly?" Sam asked cautiously.
Cas closed his eyes, not looking at all happy. When he thought about it, Dean realised neither he nor Sam knew how old Cas- Castiel- really was. It had never come up, and had never really seemed to matter. Dean found himself curious though, at the idea of Cas, centuries ago or maybe even more, roaming about Earth. What had he been like, back then? What vessel had he had? What had Cas been like? It was freaky to think about.
"In your years," Castiel said, not opening his eyes, "Perhaps six thousand have passed since then."
And fuck, but there was a difference between knowing in a general all-angels-are-old way and Cas coming out and saying it outright like that.
Beside him, Sam whistled in awe, probably forming hundreds of questions to ask Cas about history and time and whatever else his brain could come up with. There was something about the oppressive heat though, and Cas's lack of urgency, that made Dean sure they didn’t have much time to, that they needed to hurry the fuck up and solve this case. Not least because he didn’t think Chicago could take much more of this heat wave without going completely crazy.
"I take it," Dean said, taking in Cas's sudden sadness, obvious even in the semi-darkness, "Whatever happened didn't end well."
Cas hunched his shoulders, pulling his coat more tightly around himself as though he were cold, and said, "I don't remember. I should remember. I don't."
Something that could make an angel forget; yeah, this was not going to end well at all.
***
They found a motel outside the city because fuck if Dean was going to stay in the claustrophobic oven that was Chicago right now. It wasn’t much cooler, still no breeze, but at least they didn’t have to deal with the pungent dead-fish smell.
The first thing Dean did when the door was shut behind him was to turn on the air-con and crank it up to maximum. It was like fucking heaven- the good kind, not the kind filled with assholes- and for several minutes Dean laid on the bed he’d claimed as his own, arms spread wide, and gloried in the feel of cool air. He would worry about how gross he smelled and how grimy he felt later. For now there was just him and the air-conditioning.
And a pensive Sam And Cas hovering by the door looking ill at ease. More ill at ease than usual.
It wasn't late, but Dean still felt tired, and Cas looked about as good as Dean felt.
There'd been silence in the car on the way to the motel, Cas in the back because Dean didn't want him flying off somewhere when it was pretty clear he had something to do with this case. He thought he’d have to argue and threaten and yell at Cas to stay put, because he always had before, so it was kind of disconcerting when Cas just got in the car without a fight. Sat in the backseat, from the way Cas stared at his knees, concentrating, Dean guessed that Cas was freaked out about having parts of his memory missing, because he would’ve been too.
Dean realised, not long into the drive, that he was checking on Cas pretty much continuously in the mirror. It wasn't weird, he told himself, because there'd been something wrong with the guy since the moment they'd first seen him. On the walk back to the car, sometimes it was like he didn't understand them. Not in an I-don't-understand-that-reference way, but in an I-don't-speak-English kind of way, sometimes answering them in some weird-ass language Dean was sure he’d never heard before, and Sam said sounded sort of maybe Persian.
The thing that was really getting to Dean though was how sometimes the look in Cas's eyes turned cold and distant, like he didn't recognise Dean or Sam anymore. It was the same look Dean had thought he’d seen before, when they first came across Cas, and now he knew it hadn’t been his imagination. This was Cas’s holy warrior look; righteous and single-minded and it was a look Dean hadn't seen in a long time. He’d kind of hoped never to see it again. The look reminded him too much of that time just after he'd been dragged out of Hell, and all the crap that'd happened. Maybe worse, Dean had never trusted that Cas. Right now Dean didn't even know if he could trust this one.
Whatever was going on in Cas’s head came and went, from what Dean could tell at random, and right then Cas was looking around the room without much interest. The room was the same as a thousand others they'd stayed in so Dean couldn't blame him for that. Cas looked like shit, and even if Dean was pissed at him for all the ignoring and the dickishness, Dean wasn’t about to forget all the times Cas has helped them.
"Dude, sit down." Dean sighed, giving in to the inevitability that sooner or later he had to get back to the case. He sat up, patting the bed beside him. It was a big bed, and would be way more comfortable than the hard-looking chair that sat in the corner. If he was being honest, Dean wanted to keep Cas close too, because he was restless, his eyes darting around the room, taking his hands from his pockets before sliding them back in, and Dean was nervous that Cas was about to bail on them.
Across the room, Cas hesitated before moving closer, and even then he didn't sit down.
"I don't like this," he said, and squeezed his eyes closed like he was in pain, suddenly swaying on his feet.
Dean stood up instantly, hands gripping at Cas's biceps, holding him steady. "Hey, hey. It's cool. Just sit down."
He tried pushing Cas down on to the bed but his body was as immobile as stone. "Turn off the mojo, man," Dean complained, and Cas pulled a confused face that made Dean think he hadn’t even realised he was doing it.
Cas turned pliant so quickly Dean almost overbalanced, but managed to catch himself at the last second and easily pushed Cas down to sit.
"Okay," Dean said. He left a hand on Cas's shoulder, hoping it would keep Cas with them. "Tell us what you can."
Cas just shook his head irritably. "I can't tell you what I don't remember."
Dean ignored the tone and the way Cas opened his eyes to glare at Dean.
"You said this was something from ages ago, so when? We don't need specifics just... you have to remember something to know that there's something to miss, man."
Lowering his head to look at his lap, Dean guessed that Cas was trying to concentrate, or focus, or something, and there was quiet in the room. On the other bed, Sam was booting up his computer. Unhelpfully, he just shrugged when Dean looked over at him for some help. Sam was definitely wearing his worried face though.
"Before," Cas decided on eventually. "After creation, but before."
This, apparently, was a satisfactory answer for Cas because he looked up at Dean expectantly, as though he was supposed to have understood that. As though, sometime after creation had narrowed it down any.
"Before what?" Dean tried patiently. He realised he was treating Cas like one of the victims he and Sam spent half their time interviewing, and felt like a dick for it.
"Perhaps, I think, definitely before the birth of the Son."
It wasn't right, the way Cas hesitated over words. He never hesitated over words.
"What-"
Sam cut in, "I think he means Jesus, Dean. BC." Sam looked at Cas for confirmation. "Right?"
"Yes."
The air conditioner was loud in the silence that followed, and Cas's face was blank, like he had nothing more to offer. This was getting them nowhere. Dean was just about to try a different tack, maybe start with whatever had drawn Cas to the lake in the first place, when Cas stood up abruptly, his head whipping around to face in the direction of the door, his eyes turning distant.
"More have been taken," he said, or more like intoned. It was a voice Dean had never heard Cas use before; something commanding and imperious like you might expect an angel to speak rather than Cas's usual hoarse rumble.
“More people?” Sam shoved the computer off his lap and came over to stand next to Cas. "What’s taken them?"
"It makes no difference," was Cas's reply, still in that weird voice. He was looking at something beyond the door, at something neither Dean nor Sam could see. "You can't stop it. I have told you this."
"No," Sam shook his head. "You haven't. What is-"
Suddenly, Cas slumped, sitting heavily back down on the bed. He scrunched his eyes closed and reached his hands up to press fingers against the side of his head like he had a headache. Whatever had come over Cas- maybe some memory or some kind of possession- had passed.
“Cas, open your eyes,” Dean insisted, taking Cas’s chin and turning his face towards him, needing to be sure Cas was himself.
Obediently, Cas opened his eyes, blinking at Dean and asking, "What happened?"
Somehow, Dean knew this was their Cas; staring, familiar, bad-tempered Cas.
Sam had his hands on his hips and was frowning down at Cas. "You don't know?"
"I think I-" Cas broke off, started again more urgently, "There is a creature. It will take more. Or it already has. We must return to the lake."
"We just got away from there," Dean protested, thinking of the way the motel had transformed into a cool haven and outside was a burning, stinking, city of misery. "We don't know what we're looking for. We don't know where we're looking. You know how big that fucking lake is?"
"I know these things," Castiel said impatiently, but he didn't sound all that convincing. "We must go now."
"If you know," Dean sniped, "then tell-"
But before he was able to get out the rest, he felt Castiel's fingers pressing against his forehead and oh fuck no. The next thing Dean knew there was that uncomfortably familiar lurch of angel transportation and the Dean was falling, hitting the ground hard. There hadn’t been far to fall, but Dean’s unbalanced, tripped, his ankle giving way with the unexpected appearance of rough, uneven ground under his feet, and he fell back painfully onto hard stone.
He lay where he’d fallen for a few moments, trying to adjust to the sudden sweltering heat and to the darkness around him. And there it was again; the sickly smell of rotting fish. There was no doubt he was back at the lake again and Dean decided he was going to fucking throttle Cas.
Somewhere close by there was movement, and with reflexes developed over years of hunting Dean was up and on his feet in seconds, ignoring the uncomfortable throbbing in his ankle, taking in his surroundings and looking for threats. His hands automatically sought out a weapon that wasn't there.
He stood on the edge of some kind of thick forest, a rocky beach stretching away back towards the lake. Dean was pretty sure the shoreline around Chicago didn’t look like this.
Not far from him, Cas was picking himself up off the ground, dusting down his coat and looking around with slow careful movements until his eyes met with Dean's. Dean's glare. It was a lot darker here- wherever they were- than it had been earlier walking along the shoreline, but Dean could see enough.
"I didn't mean to land that way," Castiel said, sounding apologetic.
"But you did mean to bring me here," Dean retorted angrily.
"It was urgent we-"
Dean interrupted, "I'm unarmed here, Cas. I can't just burn the sockets out of my enemies’ eyes."
"There was no time, Enki," Cas said. He had that distracted look again, but Dean hadn't missed the fact that he was breaking into some goddamn foreign language again. Dean did not fucking like this one little bit. Being out on a hunt was bad enough, but out on a hunt with no weapon and an angel having some kind of mental breakdown was not Dean's idea of a good time.
Then, Cas said, "Where is your brother?"
"My- you brought Sam with us?"
Dean scanned the area more closely, swearing and cursing and trying very hard not to get really fucking angry at Cas. He needed to calm down, Dean knew that. There was no time for blame or arguing or shit like that. He needed to concentrate, but it was so damn hot. Sweat had already started to gather at the base of his spine, his jeans heavy and restrictive. At least, Dean thought, he hadn't taken his shoes off back at the motel. That would really have sucked.
"Sam?" he called, and started picking his way along the line of trees, peering into the dense forest beyond. It was almost impossible to make out anything inside the forest.
"He should be here," Cas said. "I brought him here."
"You also missed the fact that the ground was two feet lower than you thought it was," Dean pointed out pissily. He called out to Sam again and was relieved as hell when Sam yelled back.
"Here,” he called. “Dean, I’m here!”
Dean still couldn't see him, but at least he knew Sam hadn’t broken his neck or been eaten by a bear or been de-atomised or something by Cas’s broken mojo.
"Where are you?" Dean yelled.
"In a forest?" Sam replied, like the answer should be obvious. "I can't see you guys. Cas, your aim needs work."
"Tell me about it," Dean muttered, then, "We're out on a beach or something. You can't be far."
Sam sounded pretty freaked out when he called back, more quietly, "It's really dark in here."
Turning to Cas, Dean asked, "Can you find him?"
He was wary to ask because whatever was going on with Cas was screwing him up, but he didn't want to leave Sam alone in the creepy ass forest one second longer than he had to.
He was sure, at least, that Cas could see in the dark.
Nodding in reply, Cas took off at a fast pace straight into the forest.
"Wait up," Dean called, and followed at a painful jog. His ankle was going to sting like a bitch after this.
Deeper into the trees, Dean kept close to Cas. It was almost pitch-black, worse than Dean had thought when he’d been looking in from the outside, and the ground was way more uneven than out on the beach, cut through with thick tree roots and dead, fallen wood. The air was stiflingly close and unnaturally thin, like half the oxygen had been taken out of it.
He couldn't hear a single animal.
Dean found himself whispering to Cas when he asked, "Whatever this thing is, it's here isn't it?"
Cutting a sideways glance at Dean, Cas nodded once, said, "Yes," then added "Sam is close."
When Sam called to them not long after though he sounded miles away, voice echoing impossibly through the thick forest. "Are you guys close?" he yelled. "'Cause I should tell you, I don't think I'm alone in here."
"Fuck," Dean swore. To Cas he said, "We need to hurry up. Can't you zap us there?"
"I wouldn't like to risk it." Cas narrowed his eyes, maybe trying to see better, maybe in frustration, but he took Dean's wrist and sped up his pace, veering away in a different direction from the one they'd been headed in. "I'm sorry," he said. "I think- I remember-” Cas shook his head, took a breath and wasn’t that just a weird thing to see. “We go around."
"I don't even know what the fuck is going on," Dean hissed in reply. "You haven't told me anything. Jesus, it's the same every fucking time."
Dean knew it wasn't the time to be bitching, but Castiel's cryptic half-explanations were getting really old. He knew something was wrong with Cas, and would like to have believed if he was himself- if he wasn’t messed up- he wouldn’t have done this. It was difficult though when Cas rode in and out of their lives like he didn’t give a fuck. Sometimes Dean didn’t think he knew Cas at all anymore.
"And I'm still unarmed," Dean complained. He had a knife strapped to his ankle still, sure, but it was small. It wasn't a great stretch to think that anything that could take seven or eight or ten passengers from a ship before they could make any kind of call for help had to be fast, and it had to be big.
Beside him, Cas reached into his coat and pulled out his sword, holding the hilt out to Dean. It shone a strange dull blue in the darkness. "Take it," Cas said.
Dean looked at the sword, looked at Cas. "Seriously?"
"It's true I brought you here unarmed, unprepared. It was thoughtless of me. I don't know why I did it. With this you can defend yourself against anything."
"But then you'll be unarmed," Dean pointed out. As much as he wanted to take the magical angel knife, Cas was the fastest of them, the strongest, and it seemed obvious that he should keep his weapon. It felt kind of weird and intimate to take Cas's sword and Dean wasn't even sure why. And he was definitely not thinking of Meg and how she’d taken Cas’s sword. Dean wasn’t. Not at all.
Several times before Dean had taken other angel's knives too and he’d never thought twice about it then. But this was Cas's, and Cas was pressing the cool rounded handle into Dean's hand.
"I have other weapons at my disposal."
Cas turned away, dismissing any further argument on the matter. It wasn't that Dean didn't trust that Cas could take care of himself, he just didn't know what Cas was and wasn't capable of any more. He'd seen first-hand how Cas's mojo was off. Dean got the feeling Cas wasn’t sure of himself either.
It occurred to Dean how Cas had said he could defend himself against anything with his knife. The implied including angels was something Dean was not going to consider in relation to Cas.
Around them was eerily quiet, the world filled with shadows and shapes Dean couldn't quite make out. The suffocating heat was worse among the trees, the stench of decaying plants and trees added to that of decaying fish, and somewhere behind it all the distant smell of corpses. Somewhere close, Dean was sure, and Jesus fuck Sam was out there.
As they picked their way carefully through undergrowth, around thick, old trunks, Dean leaned in close to Cas, not wanting to draw attention to them but needing to hear that Sam was okay. "I need to call to Sam," he said, and was relieved when Cas nodded in agreement.
It didn't exactly make him feel any better when Cas told him, "It will know we are here anyway."
"Shit," he swore, then in a louder voice, "Sam! You still there?"
His stomach went cold when he received no reply.
"Sam?" he called out, louder this time. Silence.
Dean turned to Cas, demanding, "Where the fuck is he? Can you see?"
"I thought he was-" Cas began, but cut himself off. He stopped moving, looked cautiously around, frowning again in a way that Dean recognised as possibly starting to freak out. Fuck. Fuck.
Dean could kind of work out the direction Sam's voice had come from before, and even if didn't have a flashlight, he couldn't just stand there, not knowing and not doing nothing. Beside him, Cas didn't seem to know what the fuck was going on so he just ran, yelling back at Cas, "His voice came from this way." Cas would follow, Dean was sure, and he ignored Cas's calls to stop, to turn back, to slow down.
As he ran Dean kept his eyes sharp, kept Cas’s sword up and ready, seeking out evidence of Sam, or of something supernatural lurking among the trees. He had to be nearby.
Whatever this thing was, Dean vowed, it had better not have hurt Sam. There had to be a good reason for Sam not calling back. Maybe he was hiding out. Maybe he'd sprained his tongue. Sam would be okay, because he could look after himself and Dean would know if something bad had happened to him. Nothing bad was going to happen to him.
If Cas was right and this creature knew they were here anyway, Dean reasoned, it wouldn’t make any difference if he called out, so he yelled Sam's name.
He ran as fast as he could, called out, but in the darkness all the trees looked the same, every direction no different from any other and Dean came to realise that he couldn't tell anymore where Sam's voice had come from. Slowing down, Dean turned to look behind him and Cas wasn't there.
It was then that Dean saw movement; a slow sliding of shadows to his right, then in an instant it was gone, then movement to his left. He could hear it, not steps but a continuous crushing of bone-dry leaves and a snapping of branches, like the thing was rolling along on wheels.
Definitely not Cas.
Dean could sense it watching him, the feel of its gaze cold down his spine. The smell again, more intense than ever, decaying, bloated, fish guts, could only have come from this thing.
"Fuck," Dean whispered under his breath, hands grasping tightly around the hilt of Cas's sword. The cool weight of the metal was a welcome reminder of the strength of the weapon in his hand. Then, he saw its shape; its shadow a large, looking bulk that seemed bigger than some of the trees.
The shape and shadow and sound darted to his right, to his left, behind him, now in front, and Dean thought maybe the thing was just jerking him around for sport.
Sweat dripped into his eyes and Dean wiped it irritably away, wishing for a fucking breeze or maybe one of those little hand-held fans. Anything. Wishing the thing would just attack already because this stalking thing the creature had going was fucking annoying.
Into the darkness Dean found himself muttering, "Where the hell are you, Cas?"
<< | 2.>>
Fandom/Genre: Supernatural, h/c, action/adventure, Team Free Will, canon up to around 6x15
Characters/Pairing: Dean/Cas, Sam, Balthazar
Rating: R
Word Count: 66,449
Warnings: Violence, language
Summary: In Chicago, there are omens that point to something big. There's a heatwave that won't end, and the only clues Dean and Sam have to go on are a long history of people going missing from around Lake Michigan and Castiel's weird behaviour. There's something Castiel has forgotten and it's driving him mad.
Six thousand years earlier two other brothers fight to save their world from a slow, pitiless end by calling down the creature responsible. What they get is something they'd never expected, and the brothers come to think that maybe this being, who is powerful and righteous and calls itself Castiel, can save them all.
Notes: This was an epic thing in every way. So much happened whilst I was writing it there were a lot of times when I wasn't sure it would ever be finished. But here it is. Hours spent researching in the British Museum's awesome Hamlyn Library. Hours spent looking up everything from homosexuality in ancient Mesopotamia, to whether mead was a popular drink back then. (It wasn't. But they did enjoy wine made from dates.) Hours spent discussing the plot and characterisation and arguing over why Sam shouldn't be a eunuch, dammit.
Thanks to cienna for that. And for her exhaustive beta-ing, and I have to extend this thanks to her whole family for editing chapter 6 for me, apparently.
Much love to my alphas weirdwednesday, who I apologise to for having inflicted this on, and to littlehollyleaf who helped with some of the earlier plot points and was generally encouraging and endlessly patient. Both of you were indispensable!
Finally, to my wonderful artist __hibiscus. Her art is incredible and I had a wonderful time working with her. You should all proceed directly to admire her wonderful creations here.
And now that I've thanked the universe and the kitchen sink, onto the story.
1. | 2. | 3. | 4. | 5. | 6a. | 6b. | 7a. | 7b.
In full on AO3
.In Eridu.
1.
Dean hadn't been back to Chicago since Death. Even if that had only a year ago, with all the shit that had happened since then it might as well have been ten.
As he drove into the city, windows wound down as far as they'd go, the stifling heat impossible to avoid, Dean could see the effect the heat wave was having on people. They moved slowly along the sidewalks, sweating and miserable and gathering in the shade. Not that it made much difference. On the roads no one had any patience, and Dean guessed they longed for their homes and the prospect of air conditioning, or water, or at least to be away from the painfully slow crawl of traffic through the city where the heat was at its most intense.
On the radio, the announcer warned of water shortages, of heatstroke, of looting, and Dean had no clue how anyone had the energy for it in this. They'd only arrived a couple of hours ago and already Dean wanted out. He hated cities anyway, but this was fucking insane, and all the forecasts predicted worse to come.
Pressure fronts and freak storms in Alaska and pollution build-up had all been used to explain the long, slow slide into record temperatures. It wasn't even summer yet, barely even spring, and people made excuses and told themselves it'd be over soon, it was nothing, but Dean had seen the signs. He had read the articles Sam had found in the local papers and on the internet that reported on the decimation of fish stocks in Lake Michigan, and of the disappearances. It reeked of the supernatural, even if no one else wanted to believe it. So here they were, stuck in traffic, drinking through the last of their bottle of water- warm now but better than nothing- and wishing they'd bought more at the last gas station.
It wasn't like they were in a hurry or anything, only just coming on to the case, and the lethargy this kind of heat induced made it impossible to move very fast anyway. But they had a lot of groundwork to cover and Dean kind of wanted to get to the lake before sundown. The air was so freakily dry, and everything in his car was burning to the touch, and he wanted this job done as quickly as possible.
With something like this though, Dean knew, there was no way it was going to be anything they could just fix up in a night or two.
Something like this took real power. There'd been a shit load of omens, change in weather patterns, and Bobby had heard rumours of unprecedented numbers of ghosts and ghouls and other nasties crawling about Chicago. While that wasn't exactly anything new these days, it was unusual in such a concentrated area. There was no doubt that something big was going on, and the dry heat- like driving into a freaking oven- only made Dean more certain they were dealing with something bad. He hadn't felt this tense, had such a strong sense of wrongness since the apocalypse.
He'd never say it out loud but it was kind of freaking him out.
In the seat beside him, shifting uncomfortably and sweating all over the upholstery, Sam was wearing his most worried look. His laptop sat open on his knees and that had to be really freaking uncomfortable. As though the heat around them wasn't bad enough. Typing slowly in between rubbing at his eyes and pushing his hair back from his face, whatever Sam was finding could not be anything good, if the sighing and muttering were any indication.
It didn't look like they were going very far anytime soon. Seeking distraction from the noise and the boredom and the discomfort Dean leaned back in his seat, stretched out his arms as he gripped the steering wheel, and asked, "You find anything?"
Sam shrugged and shook his head. "I've found a ton of things, but none of them add up to anything that makes sense."
"This had better not be the end of the world again," Dean griped and grimaced, because way to jinx it. That uneasy feeling was stronger than ever, and Dean had always trusted his instincts. It was probably just the heat, Dean told himself, and the claustrophobia he always felt in big cities.
Sam glanced up at Dean before turning back to his computer screen, typing away at a few keys. "Cas would've told us if it was, wouldn't he?"
Only in the life of the Winchesters was the end of the world not a single event. Worse, Dean hated that his first thought was, Not if he's dead he wouldn't.
They hadn't heard anything from Cas in days. Not exactly unheard of, or even unusual these days, but yeah, there was that bad feeling Dean couldn't shake. It wasn't that he was worried. The angel was big enough to take care of himself, except maybe not so much against the host of Heaven. They were just human though, and what they hell could they do to help even if Cas did ask for it?
Wiping the stinging sweat, the tiredness, from his eyes, Dean replied, "Who knows?"
Dean thought about praying. If he were honest with himself he thought about praying to Cas a lot more often than he'd like. But Cas had a war to fight and he'd made it very clear that he did not appreciate being disturbed. Nothing had actually happened that could credit calling down an angel. Not yet anyway. Maybe that was the point. Maybe whatever this was caused a hundred little things that nobody noticed instead of one big thing that had everyone screaming and running away, allowing it to sit back, take its pickings, and nobody knew any better.
They've seen shit like this before, and they'd never yet failed to stop it. This time, Dean knew, wouldn't be any different.
***
Back on Lake Shore Drive, however the fuck many miles and a bajillion hours ago, Dean had noticed the smell.
Then, it had been faint, not much more than a hint of rotting fish and carcasses that Dean had thought wasn’t all that weird for a boiling city. As though the heat wasn't bad enough, as they'd gotten closer to the lake the smell had gradually turned into a stench until Dean was breathing through his mouth so he didn't gag and Sam was grimacing and hiding his face in his shirt, pulled up over his nose.
They were both sweaty, grouchy, and aching from hours sitting in more or less gridlocked traffic, and just to make it the perfect day there was this horrific smell. So the first question Dean asked when they'd finally found someone who would talk to them was, "Why the hell have all the fish just been left there."
Not his most diplomatic opening, but Jesus, standing next to a lake blanketed by dead, decaying fish bloated and floating on the surface and smelling it up close and personal was enough to make anyone pissy.
The guy, a grizzled old charter boat captain, frowned at Dean. "They haven't," he said, not looking at all happy.
It was spring, and the marina should have been heaving with tourists, but there was nothing but rotting fish and boat owners hanging around, cleaning fish guts out of their engines and hoping for crazy fish-smell loving visitors to show up. Or something. With the relentless heat it would have been kind of nice, Dean thought, to get out on the lake, take a swim, maybe there was a breeze out there even. It would have been awesome, if not for the dead fish.
"These are just today’s," the captain went on. "It's the same every morning." He gestured towards the lake. "There ain't gonna be any fucking fish left soon."
"Least it'd smell better," Dean murmured, and didn't miss the sour look the captain gave him. Nor did he miss the way Sam elbowed him.
Ignoring Dean's comment, Sam asked, "When did all this start, sir?" He sounded polite and interested, and Dean wondered if soulless Sam could have done that. Would soulless Sam even have noticed the heat? This was normal Sam, though, and even if this Sam looked tired and kept fidgeting and pulling at the front of his t-shirt Dean was glad to have him back.
From the way the captain was eyeing Sam suspiciously, for a moment Dean thought he wasn't going to answer, like he thought they were somehow making fun of him. They really needed this guy though, and sometimes Dean really wished he'd learn to keep his mouth shut. He was going to blame his bad mood on the heat. It didn’t help that everyone they'd spoken to that day had been pissy and unfriendly as hell. If this heat wave didn't break soon, Dean thought, Chicago was going to turn into an ugly place.
"Please. Anything you can tell us would be really helpful." Somehow, despite his obvious discomfort Sam still managed to sound earnest.
"You gonna be able to change this damned weather?" the guy scoffed.
Sam shrugged noncommittally. It was always difficult to know just how much to tell civilians. How much they were willing to believe before they called bullshit, or what was the best lie. Over a lifetime of practice they’d both gotten good at the deception and the leading questions and the best way to keep witnesses talking, but people were always unpredictable.
At last the captain said, "It started three weeks ago. Right before the weather went screwy." He looked away from them, staring out at the lake. What water could be seen around all the fish lay motionless, the boats tethered to the moorings hardly moving at all. "It isn't natural."
Dean had to admit, the lake's surface looked creepy, like someone had hit the pause button.
"We heard there were some boats found with their passengers and crew missing." Sam said. "Is it true?"
More than the freak heat wave and the dead fish, the reports of missing people were what had brought them to Chicago. No signs of struggle. No damage. Just no one left aboard. Unless it was all some weird prank then there was no way these incidents weren’t somehow supernatural.
And damn but these people were distrustful. The captain's eyes narrowed. "What newspaper you say you're from again?"
"The Daily Herald," Sam replied smoothly, lifting his notebook and pen as though it were proof enough.
The guy hummed, but answered, "It's bad for business, so you keep this to yourselves."
"Of course," Sam said, and Dean would have believed him too from the solemn look on his brother’s face.
"I saw them bring in the second boat.” The old guy shook his head. “Not a soul left aboard. No one's found them yet."
"Does anyone know what might have happened?" Sam asked.
"Not a clue." The captain pulled himself upright from where he was leaning, looking off into the distance and avoiding meeting their eyes and Dean was pretty sure he knew something.
"But you've got an idea, right?" Dean encouraged. "Some theory?"
"Not a theory." The guy waved his hand dismissively. "The boats were all found around South Manitou Island. Been a lot of stories about that place for a long time. A lot of shipwrecks there."
Stories. Right. There were always stories and every time they came across this kind of thing- some place knee-deep in local legends and superstition- it was almost impossible to tell what was bullshit and what was true.
Sam somehow managed to look intrigued, like he’d never heard of anything like this before in his life. "Stories?"
"Weird crap like folk seeing monsters and noises at night. There's an old, abandoned lighthouse there. Some people think it’s haunted." The captain snorted derisively. "I think it's dumb college kids."
Sam nodded grimly in a way that Dean guessed was supposed to show he completely agreed. He let the captain bitch for a while about rich kids renting boats when they knew nothing about them and cared even less, getting themselves killed, polluting the lake, being loud, drunken assholes. From the way Sam shifted from foot to foot, looking thoughtful, Dean could tell though that Sam already planning their next move. Dean agreed that this was definitely a lead. It was better than the fuck-all they'd managed to gather from the news reports and the police channels so far anyway.
"Thank you for your help," Sam eventually managed to break in. It was clear they weren't going to get anything more useful out of this guy. It was getting to dark, too, but the sky was cloudless and clear; great weather for hunting. If it weren’t for the heat making his throat dry and his eyes heavy and tired it would've been perfect. Despite it being close to sunset now the temperature didn’t seem to be cooling down any either.
When they were a fair distance away from the boats and the locals out for a walk, probably trying to find relief from the heat, Dean asked, "What d'you think?"
His shirt was soaked with sweat, he could feel it running down his back and down his legs and it was gross. He would've worried how badly they smelled, if it wasn't for the continuous, over-powering odour of rotting fish that filled the air. As far as Dean could tell there was no escaping this heat anywhere, and the exertion of trekking for a couple miles round the lake was starting to burn.
"Could be ghosts," Sam said. "But they couldn't have done all this." He lifted his hands, turned his palms upwards, and Dean had to agree that he'd never seen a spirit even close to being powerful enough to fuck with a whole city's weather. "Demons are more likely."
"Yeah. Or maybe one of those pain-in-the-ass gods." They certainly had the mojo for it, though Dean couldn't see any motive. Unless they were insane, which was way too likely a reason as any for why supernatural beings did anything.
"Or angels," Sam suggested, and Dean shrugged, conceding the point, because that was possible too. What Dean saw as a random mix of omens might have some meaning to an angel, like Lucifer rising, or something big happening in Heaven. It wasn't exactly encouraging that they hadn't seen Cas in weeks.
Maybe he should've called Cas after all. There was no guarantee though that the bastard would even answer.
"There's still a jar of holy oil in the trunk," Dean said, not that that was likely to be of much use but it made him feel better, knowing that they had something over the angels. Aside from sex and awesome music.
They were coming up to the end of the paved path, no lights beyond it, and a beach made up of massive jagged stones. Definitely not natural, but not exactly ugly in the evening half-light. There were less dead fish here, and the water looked eerily thick and black. Dean was sure it should have been reflecting the sunset or something the way you always saw in vacation photos and magazines. Still, this was Chicago, not some tropical island, and no matter how far Dean and Sam had walked away from the main tourist area there was no escaping the orange glow of cities everywhere and the distant sound of rumbling traffic.
"We could be out for a romantic stroll," Dean teased. It felt good, walking beside his brother, discussing a case like they’d done a thousand times before. It was so familiar, and something Dean had missed when Sam hadn’t really been Sam but some weird-ass mannequin of a man. Working cases with Sam without his soul had been like walking around with some poor imitation of something you loved that just reminded you all the time of what you’d lost.
"Yeah," Sam snorted, "Great place to bring a date, what with the fragrant night air."
Dean laughed, because before, even when they had work to do there had always been time for this kind of thing with Sam. Not so much with soulless Sam, who was all about the winning and didn’t seem to care at all about anything in-between. Fuck, it had been so long since they'd messed with each other like this. There was always some shit in the way, something wrong, and just for once, here beside a dead-fish clogged late in an early spring heat wave that would've made any desert proud, it felt good to have his brother back.
"It suits you," Dean threw back. "Compliments your own fine odour."
"Are you saying I smell bad?" Sam stared at Dean incredulously as they walked. "What are you, five?"
"Hey, I’m just saying it how it is. I’m the one whose gotta get in a car with you."
There was nothing to see out here that Dean could tell. He could barely stand the stench, and would've killed for a cold beer, but even so, Dean was reluctant to let this moment of maybe-sorta contentment go. The sun had nearly set though, and they hadn't brought flashlights with them, and Dean didn't want to chance breaking his ankle on the rocks. That would just be embarrassing.
He was about to call it a night and suggest they head back to the impala when Sam stopped, shading his eyes from the low glare of the evening sun with his hand.
"You see that?" he asked, pointing ahead of them.
Visibility was bad with heat turning the air into hazy mirages and twilight casting long shadows over the beaches and the lake's surface, and for a long while Dean couldn't make out what Sam was looking at.
When he saw, he knew what it was- who it was- instantly. No matter how far away or distorted there was no mistaking that trench coat, nor the awkward, statue-like way of standing Cas always had.
"Is that who I think it is?" Sam asked.
"Oh, yeah," Dean said.
Sam frowned. "This can't be a coincidence, right?"
"Doubt it."
It couldn't be a good sign that Cas was already here. It meant bigger, badder things.
They watched Cas not move, at all, and with the added weirdness of the dead-calm of the like it looked as though the whole world had been put on hold. From what Dean could tell, Cas was staring out over the lake, fixed in place, and it didn't seem like he’d noticed them. It didn't make sense. If Cas was looking for them, surely he would've contacted Bobby, or just appeared right in their faces. Not half a mile away, in the dark, on sharp and pointy rocks brooding like Batman.
Sam must have thought it weird too because he sounded uneasy when he said, "You think we should call him?"
"I guess," Dean agreed.
If Cas was here alone, on his own business, that just made this whole situation freakier.
Neither of them ever asked what Castiel did when he was away doing his angel-business thing, and he never offered any explanations, but that didn't mean Dean never wondered. It didn't seem likely that Cas was just here because he happened to like the view.
He called, "Cas!" and again, "Castiel!" when Cas didn't respond. To Sam, Dean said, "He seem out of it to you?"
It wasn't like Dean was worried or anything, because Cas was a big-shot angel and could take care of himself, but there was definitely something not quite right when he couldn’t even hear them shouting. Cas continued to look out, unmoving, and maybe it was just ego or whatever but Dean was sure that Cas would never just ignore him. Them.
"Cas!" he called again. "Get your ass over here!"
That, at least, got Cas's attention and he turned slowly towards them. It was too far to see clearly, to know if it was just his imagination, but for a second Dean would've sworn Cas didn't recognise them. Even though Dean was sweating like a bitch, skin overheated and uncomfortable, the air stagnant and heavy and cloying, in that second Dean still somehow managed to feel cold. Then the look- if it had ever existed- was gone, and Cas was shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat. Before Dean could think anything else of it, Cas was standing right in front of them, eyes on Dean, serious and familiar.
"Dean," he greeted, then tilting his head to the side, "Sam."
All the times Dean had seen Cas in recent months he’d been short-tempered, like someone was continually on his case. He was always in a hurry, only ever deigning to give them a couple minutes and explaining exactly nothing. Now though, Cas had a sereneness to him, if a confused one, like Cas didn't quite know what he was doing here.
Sam looked at Dean, raising an eyebrow and glancing towards Cas. Dean shrugged, because the hell if he knew what was up with the angel. Things hadn’t been so good between them recently, to the point that Dean sometimes had to wonder if they were even friends anymore. Most of the time he got the impression Cas didn't think whatever was going on with the angels had anything to do with him or Sam. On a generous day Dean would allow that maybe Cas didn't want them involved in something he thought was way beyond them, but even that pissed Dean off. Lucifer had to be the biggest of them all and Dean and Sam had taken him on. It was like Cas didn’t think them capable of handling themselves which was bullshit. If Cas would just talk to them sometimes, let them know the Earth wasn't about to get wiped clean by psychotic angels, that would’ve gone a long way to making Dean less irritated with Cas.
"Something up?" Dean asked.
Cas hadn’t, at least, just gone and disappeared on them. There was that feeling again that something was messed up, but if this was some big Heaven thing Cas certainly wasn't acting all up-in-his face, emergency, gotta act now, like he usually was.
For a long moment Cas didn't reply, almost like he wasn't sure how to answer.
Still in his suit and trench coat, just looking at Cas made Dean feel hot, and not in a good way. The confusion on Cas’s face made him frown, and yeah, maybe he felt a little concerned.
"I was drawn here," Cas said finally, which answered just about nothing.
By now the sun had almost entirely set, and they still didn't have any damn flashlights on them.
Dean crossed his arms. With this unending heat, with Cas being his usual incomprehensible self, despite the weirdness of it all, he couldn't be blamed for being on a short fuse.
"Yeah? You wanna explain what that means?"
Another long pause and Castiel shook his head slowly, unsure.
"These omens." Cas turned his head to look out over the lake again, not at the sky but at the water and the fish. "They are familiar."
"So they are omens," Sam said. "We couldn't be sure if the heat was natural or, well, man-made."
"It is artificial," Castiel confirmed.
"You wouldn't know something useful like, what was causing this?" It wasn't like Dean had any real hope that he did, or that he would tell them even if he did, but it was worth asking anyway.
Predictably, Cas replied, "No." Then, with a look on his face Dean had never seen before, but was maybe somewhere between frustrated and preoccupied, Cas added, "But it is ancient. I'm sure of this."
"You got anything more specific?" Dean pressed.
"I think," Cas said, lowering his eyes to the ground in the way he always did when he told them something he didn't think they wanted to hear, "I think I have seen this before, a very long time ago."
Sam glanced at Dean again, surprised and uneasy. "How long ago, exactly?" Sam asked cautiously.
Cas closed his eyes, not looking at all happy. When he thought about it, Dean realised neither he nor Sam knew how old Cas- Castiel- really was. It had never come up, and had never really seemed to matter. Dean found himself curious though, at the idea of Cas, centuries ago or maybe even more, roaming about Earth. What had he been like, back then? What vessel had he had? What had Cas been like? It was freaky to think about.
"In your years," Castiel said, not opening his eyes, "Perhaps six thousand have passed since then."
And fuck, but there was a difference between knowing in a general all-angels-are-old way and Cas coming out and saying it outright like that.
Beside him, Sam whistled in awe, probably forming hundreds of questions to ask Cas about history and time and whatever else his brain could come up with. There was something about the oppressive heat though, and Cas's lack of urgency, that made Dean sure they didn’t have much time to, that they needed to hurry the fuck up and solve this case. Not least because he didn’t think Chicago could take much more of this heat wave without going completely crazy.
"I take it," Dean said, taking in Cas's sudden sadness, obvious even in the semi-darkness, "Whatever happened didn't end well."
Cas hunched his shoulders, pulling his coat more tightly around himself as though he were cold, and said, "I don't remember. I should remember. I don't."
Something that could make an angel forget; yeah, this was not going to end well at all.
***
They found a motel outside the city because fuck if Dean was going to stay in the claustrophobic oven that was Chicago right now. It wasn’t much cooler, still no breeze, but at least they didn’t have to deal with the pungent dead-fish smell.
The first thing Dean did when the door was shut behind him was to turn on the air-con and crank it up to maximum. It was like fucking heaven- the good kind, not the kind filled with assholes- and for several minutes Dean laid on the bed he’d claimed as his own, arms spread wide, and gloried in the feel of cool air. He would worry about how gross he smelled and how grimy he felt later. For now there was just him and the air-conditioning.
And a pensive Sam And Cas hovering by the door looking ill at ease. More ill at ease than usual.
It wasn't late, but Dean still felt tired, and Cas looked about as good as Dean felt.
There'd been silence in the car on the way to the motel, Cas in the back because Dean didn't want him flying off somewhere when it was pretty clear he had something to do with this case. He thought he’d have to argue and threaten and yell at Cas to stay put, because he always had before, so it was kind of disconcerting when Cas just got in the car without a fight. Sat in the backseat, from the way Cas stared at his knees, concentrating, Dean guessed that Cas was freaked out about having parts of his memory missing, because he would’ve been too.
Dean realised, not long into the drive, that he was checking on Cas pretty much continuously in the mirror. It wasn't weird, he told himself, because there'd been something wrong with the guy since the moment they'd first seen him. On the walk back to the car, sometimes it was like he didn't understand them. Not in an I-don't-understand-that-reference way, but in an I-don't-speak-English kind of way, sometimes answering them in some weird-ass language Dean was sure he’d never heard before, and Sam said sounded sort of maybe Persian.
The thing that was really getting to Dean though was how sometimes the look in Cas's eyes turned cold and distant, like he didn't recognise Dean or Sam anymore. It was the same look Dean had thought he’d seen before, when they first came across Cas, and now he knew it hadn’t been his imagination. This was Cas’s holy warrior look; righteous and single-minded and it was a look Dean hadn't seen in a long time. He’d kind of hoped never to see it again. The look reminded him too much of that time just after he'd been dragged out of Hell, and all the crap that'd happened. Maybe worse, Dean had never trusted that Cas. Right now Dean didn't even know if he could trust this one.
Whatever was going on in Cas’s head came and went, from what Dean could tell at random, and right then Cas was looking around the room without much interest. The room was the same as a thousand others they'd stayed in so Dean couldn't blame him for that. Cas looked like shit, and even if Dean was pissed at him for all the ignoring and the dickishness, Dean wasn’t about to forget all the times Cas has helped them.
"Dude, sit down." Dean sighed, giving in to the inevitability that sooner or later he had to get back to the case. He sat up, patting the bed beside him. It was a big bed, and would be way more comfortable than the hard-looking chair that sat in the corner. If he was being honest, Dean wanted to keep Cas close too, because he was restless, his eyes darting around the room, taking his hands from his pockets before sliding them back in, and Dean was nervous that Cas was about to bail on them.
Across the room, Cas hesitated before moving closer, and even then he didn't sit down.
"I don't like this," he said, and squeezed his eyes closed like he was in pain, suddenly swaying on his feet.
Dean stood up instantly, hands gripping at Cas's biceps, holding him steady. "Hey, hey. It's cool. Just sit down."
He tried pushing Cas down on to the bed but his body was as immobile as stone. "Turn off the mojo, man," Dean complained, and Cas pulled a confused face that made Dean think he hadn’t even realised he was doing it.
Cas turned pliant so quickly Dean almost overbalanced, but managed to catch himself at the last second and easily pushed Cas down to sit.
"Okay," Dean said. He left a hand on Cas's shoulder, hoping it would keep Cas with them. "Tell us what you can."
Cas just shook his head irritably. "I can't tell you what I don't remember."
Dean ignored the tone and the way Cas opened his eyes to glare at Dean.
"You said this was something from ages ago, so when? We don't need specifics just... you have to remember something to know that there's something to miss, man."
Lowering his head to look at his lap, Dean guessed that Cas was trying to concentrate, or focus, or something, and there was quiet in the room. On the other bed, Sam was booting up his computer. Unhelpfully, he just shrugged when Dean looked over at him for some help. Sam was definitely wearing his worried face though.
"Before," Cas decided on eventually. "After creation, but before."
This, apparently, was a satisfactory answer for Cas because he looked up at Dean expectantly, as though he was supposed to have understood that. As though, sometime after creation had narrowed it down any.
"Before what?" Dean tried patiently. He realised he was treating Cas like one of the victims he and Sam spent half their time interviewing, and felt like a dick for it.
"Perhaps, I think, definitely before the birth of the Son."
It wasn't right, the way Cas hesitated over words. He never hesitated over words.
"What-"
Sam cut in, "I think he means Jesus, Dean. BC." Sam looked at Cas for confirmation. "Right?"
"Yes."
The air conditioner was loud in the silence that followed, and Cas's face was blank, like he had nothing more to offer. This was getting them nowhere. Dean was just about to try a different tack, maybe start with whatever had drawn Cas to the lake in the first place, when Cas stood up abruptly, his head whipping around to face in the direction of the door, his eyes turning distant.
"More have been taken," he said, or more like intoned. It was a voice Dean had never heard Cas use before; something commanding and imperious like you might expect an angel to speak rather than Cas's usual hoarse rumble.
“More people?” Sam shoved the computer off his lap and came over to stand next to Cas. "What’s taken them?"
"It makes no difference," was Cas's reply, still in that weird voice. He was looking at something beyond the door, at something neither Dean nor Sam could see. "You can't stop it. I have told you this."
"No," Sam shook his head. "You haven't. What is-"
Suddenly, Cas slumped, sitting heavily back down on the bed. He scrunched his eyes closed and reached his hands up to press fingers against the side of his head like he had a headache. Whatever had come over Cas- maybe some memory or some kind of possession- had passed.
“Cas, open your eyes,” Dean insisted, taking Cas’s chin and turning his face towards him, needing to be sure Cas was himself.
Obediently, Cas opened his eyes, blinking at Dean and asking, "What happened?"
Somehow, Dean knew this was their Cas; staring, familiar, bad-tempered Cas.
Sam had his hands on his hips and was frowning down at Cas. "You don't know?"
"I think I-" Cas broke off, started again more urgently, "There is a creature. It will take more. Or it already has. We must return to the lake."
"We just got away from there," Dean protested, thinking of the way the motel had transformed into a cool haven and outside was a burning, stinking, city of misery. "We don't know what we're looking for. We don't know where we're looking. You know how big that fucking lake is?"
"I know these things," Castiel said impatiently, but he didn't sound all that convincing. "We must go now."
"If you know," Dean sniped, "then tell-"
But before he was able to get out the rest, he felt Castiel's fingers pressing against his forehead and oh fuck no. The next thing Dean knew there was that uncomfortably familiar lurch of angel transportation and the Dean was falling, hitting the ground hard. There hadn’t been far to fall, but Dean’s unbalanced, tripped, his ankle giving way with the unexpected appearance of rough, uneven ground under his feet, and he fell back painfully onto hard stone.
He lay where he’d fallen for a few moments, trying to adjust to the sudden sweltering heat and to the darkness around him. And there it was again; the sickly smell of rotting fish. There was no doubt he was back at the lake again and Dean decided he was going to fucking throttle Cas.
Somewhere close by there was movement, and with reflexes developed over years of hunting Dean was up and on his feet in seconds, ignoring the uncomfortable throbbing in his ankle, taking in his surroundings and looking for threats. His hands automatically sought out a weapon that wasn't there.
He stood on the edge of some kind of thick forest, a rocky beach stretching away back towards the lake. Dean was pretty sure the shoreline around Chicago didn’t look like this.
Not far from him, Cas was picking himself up off the ground, dusting down his coat and looking around with slow careful movements until his eyes met with Dean's. Dean's glare. It was a lot darker here- wherever they were- than it had been earlier walking along the shoreline, but Dean could see enough.
"I didn't mean to land that way," Castiel said, sounding apologetic.
"But you did mean to bring me here," Dean retorted angrily.
"It was urgent we-"
Dean interrupted, "I'm unarmed here, Cas. I can't just burn the sockets out of my enemies’ eyes."
"There was no time, Enki," Cas said. He had that distracted look again, but Dean hadn't missed the fact that he was breaking into some goddamn foreign language again. Dean did not fucking like this one little bit. Being out on a hunt was bad enough, but out on a hunt with no weapon and an angel having some kind of mental breakdown was not Dean's idea of a good time.
Then, Cas said, "Where is your brother?"
"My- you brought Sam with us?"
Dean scanned the area more closely, swearing and cursing and trying very hard not to get really fucking angry at Cas. He needed to calm down, Dean knew that. There was no time for blame or arguing or shit like that. He needed to concentrate, but it was so damn hot. Sweat had already started to gather at the base of his spine, his jeans heavy and restrictive. At least, Dean thought, he hadn't taken his shoes off back at the motel. That would really have sucked.
"Sam?" he called, and started picking his way along the line of trees, peering into the dense forest beyond. It was almost impossible to make out anything inside the forest.
"He should be here," Cas said. "I brought him here."
"You also missed the fact that the ground was two feet lower than you thought it was," Dean pointed out pissily. He called out to Sam again and was relieved as hell when Sam yelled back.
"Here,” he called. “Dean, I’m here!”
Dean still couldn't see him, but at least he knew Sam hadn’t broken his neck or been eaten by a bear or been de-atomised or something by Cas’s broken mojo.
"Where are you?" Dean yelled.
"In a forest?" Sam replied, like the answer should be obvious. "I can't see you guys. Cas, your aim needs work."
"Tell me about it," Dean muttered, then, "We're out on a beach or something. You can't be far."
Sam sounded pretty freaked out when he called back, more quietly, "It's really dark in here."
Turning to Cas, Dean asked, "Can you find him?"
He was wary to ask because whatever was going on with Cas was screwing him up, but he didn't want to leave Sam alone in the creepy ass forest one second longer than he had to.
He was sure, at least, that Cas could see in the dark.
Nodding in reply, Cas took off at a fast pace straight into the forest.
"Wait up," Dean called, and followed at a painful jog. His ankle was going to sting like a bitch after this.
Deeper into the trees, Dean kept close to Cas. It was almost pitch-black, worse than Dean had thought when he’d been looking in from the outside, and the ground was way more uneven than out on the beach, cut through with thick tree roots and dead, fallen wood. The air was stiflingly close and unnaturally thin, like half the oxygen had been taken out of it.
He couldn't hear a single animal.
Dean found himself whispering to Cas when he asked, "Whatever this thing is, it's here isn't it?"
Cutting a sideways glance at Dean, Cas nodded once, said, "Yes," then added "Sam is close."
When Sam called to them not long after though he sounded miles away, voice echoing impossibly through the thick forest. "Are you guys close?" he yelled. "'Cause I should tell you, I don't think I'm alone in here."
"Fuck," Dean swore. To Cas he said, "We need to hurry up. Can't you zap us there?"
"I wouldn't like to risk it." Cas narrowed his eyes, maybe trying to see better, maybe in frustration, but he took Dean's wrist and sped up his pace, veering away in a different direction from the one they'd been headed in. "I'm sorry," he said. "I think- I remember-” Cas shook his head, took a breath and wasn’t that just a weird thing to see. “We go around."
"I don't even know what the fuck is going on," Dean hissed in reply. "You haven't told me anything. Jesus, it's the same every fucking time."
Dean knew it wasn't the time to be bitching, but Castiel's cryptic half-explanations were getting really old. He knew something was wrong with Cas, and would like to have believed if he was himself- if he wasn’t messed up- he wouldn’t have done this. It was difficult though when Cas rode in and out of their lives like he didn’t give a fuck. Sometimes Dean didn’t think he knew Cas at all anymore.
"And I'm still unarmed," Dean complained. He had a knife strapped to his ankle still, sure, but it was small. It wasn't a great stretch to think that anything that could take seven or eight or ten passengers from a ship before they could make any kind of call for help had to be fast, and it had to be big.
Beside him, Cas reached into his coat and pulled out his sword, holding the hilt out to Dean. It shone a strange dull blue in the darkness. "Take it," Cas said.
Dean looked at the sword, looked at Cas. "Seriously?"
"It's true I brought you here unarmed, unprepared. It was thoughtless of me. I don't know why I did it. With this you can defend yourself against anything."
"But then you'll be unarmed," Dean pointed out. As much as he wanted to take the magical angel knife, Cas was the fastest of them, the strongest, and it seemed obvious that he should keep his weapon. It felt kind of weird and intimate to take Cas's sword and Dean wasn't even sure why. And he was definitely not thinking of Meg and how she’d taken Cas’s sword. Dean wasn’t. Not at all.
Several times before Dean had taken other angel's knives too and he’d never thought twice about it then. But this was Cas's, and Cas was pressing the cool rounded handle into Dean's hand.
"I have other weapons at my disposal."
Cas turned away, dismissing any further argument on the matter. It wasn't that Dean didn't trust that Cas could take care of himself, he just didn't know what Cas was and wasn't capable of any more. He'd seen first-hand how Cas's mojo was off. Dean got the feeling Cas wasn’t sure of himself either.
It occurred to Dean how Cas had said he could defend himself against anything with his knife. The implied including angels was something Dean was not going to consider in relation to Cas.
Around them was eerily quiet, the world filled with shadows and shapes Dean couldn't quite make out. The suffocating heat was worse among the trees, the stench of decaying plants and trees added to that of decaying fish, and somewhere behind it all the distant smell of corpses. Somewhere close, Dean was sure, and Jesus fuck Sam was out there.
As they picked their way carefully through undergrowth, around thick, old trunks, Dean leaned in close to Cas, not wanting to draw attention to them but needing to hear that Sam was okay. "I need to call to Sam," he said, and was relieved when Cas nodded in agreement.
It didn't exactly make him feel any better when Cas told him, "It will know we are here anyway."
"Shit," he swore, then in a louder voice, "Sam! You still there?"
His stomach went cold when he received no reply.
"Sam?" he called out, louder this time. Silence.
Dean turned to Cas, demanding, "Where the fuck is he? Can you see?"
"I thought he was-" Cas began, but cut himself off. He stopped moving, looked cautiously around, frowning again in a way that Dean recognised as possibly starting to freak out. Fuck. Fuck.
Dean could kind of work out the direction Sam's voice had come from before, and even if didn't have a flashlight, he couldn't just stand there, not knowing and not doing nothing. Beside him, Cas didn't seem to know what the fuck was going on so he just ran, yelling back at Cas, "His voice came from this way." Cas would follow, Dean was sure, and he ignored Cas's calls to stop, to turn back, to slow down.
As he ran Dean kept his eyes sharp, kept Cas’s sword up and ready, seeking out evidence of Sam, or of something supernatural lurking among the trees. He had to be nearby.
Whatever this thing was, Dean vowed, it had better not have hurt Sam. There had to be a good reason for Sam not calling back. Maybe he was hiding out. Maybe he'd sprained his tongue. Sam would be okay, because he could look after himself and Dean would know if something bad had happened to him. Nothing bad was going to happen to him.
If Cas was right and this creature knew they were here anyway, Dean reasoned, it wouldn’t make any difference if he called out, so he yelled Sam's name.
He ran as fast as he could, called out, but in the darkness all the trees looked the same, every direction no different from any other and Dean came to realise that he couldn't tell anymore where Sam's voice had come from. Slowing down, Dean turned to look behind him and Cas wasn't there.
It was then that Dean saw movement; a slow sliding of shadows to his right, then in an instant it was gone, then movement to his left. He could hear it, not steps but a continuous crushing of bone-dry leaves and a snapping of branches, like the thing was rolling along on wheels.
Definitely not Cas.
Dean could sense it watching him, the feel of its gaze cold down his spine. The smell again, more intense than ever, decaying, bloated, fish guts, could only have come from this thing.
"Fuck," Dean whispered under his breath, hands grasping tightly around the hilt of Cas's sword. The cool weight of the metal was a welcome reminder of the strength of the weapon in his hand. Then, he saw its shape; its shadow a large, looking bulk that seemed bigger than some of the trees.
The shape and shadow and sound darted to his right, to his left, behind him, now in front, and Dean thought maybe the thing was just jerking him around for sport.
Sweat dripped into his eyes and Dean wiped it irritably away, wishing for a fucking breeze or maybe one of those little hand-held fans. Anything. Wishing the thing would just attack already because this stalking thing the creature had going was fucking annoying.
Into the darkness Dean found himself muttering, "Where the hell are you, Cas?"
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